Life Is What You Make It: Find Your Own Path to Fulfillment

by Peter Buffett Narrated by Peter Buffett

Overview

“Peter Buffett has given us a wise and inspiring [audio]book...for every young person seeking to find his or her place in the world, and for every family hoping to give its daughters and sons the best possible start in life.”-Bill Clinton
*
You may think that with a last name like his, Buffett has enjoyed a life of endless privilege. But the son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett says that the only real inheritance handed down from his parents was a philosophy: Forge your own path in life. It is a creed that has allowed him to follow his own passions, establish his own identity, and reap his own successes.
*********** Today's society, Buffett posits, has begun to replace a work ethic, relishing what you do, with a wealth ethic, honoring the payoff instead of the process. We confuse privilege with material accumulation. Yet, by focusing more on substance and less on reward, we can open doors of opportunity and strive toward a greater sense of fulfillment. In clear and concise terms, Buffett reveals a great truth: Life is random, neither fair nor unfair. Our journey in life rarely follows a straight line but is often met with false starts, crises, and blunders. How we push through and persevere in these challenging moments is where we begin to create the life of our dreams.
****Personal and revealing, instructive and intuitive, Life Is What You Make It is about transcending your circumstances, taking up the reins of your destiny, and living your life to the fullest.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

J.P. Morgan Private Bank's Summer Reading List Pick, 2010

“Peter Buffett has given us a wise and inspiring book that should be required reading for every young person seeking to find his or her place in the world, and for every family hoping to give its daughters and sons the best possible start in life.”
–President Bill Clinton

"Knowing and admiring Peter as we do, LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT captures his spirit, passion, and values beautifully. As parents, it’s the kind of dialogue about our life’s purpose and opportunity we’re having with our children. We will have everyone in our family read and discuss LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT ."
–Bill & Melinda Gates

"With home-spun, heart-felt wisdom, Peter Buffett ponders how to make a meaningful life, while making a living. LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT is thought-provoking, worthwhile reading."
–Ted Turner

"LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT is the ultimate book of commonsense -- except it isn't common. Because Peter Buffett could have had a derived identity and chose not to, he has power and credibility when he tells us how to find a unique self by doing what we love. I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't benefit from this spirited, wise, and friendly book."
–Gloria Steinem

"In his searching book, LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT, Peter Buffett challenges us all to balance ambition and service, personal goals and work for the common good. It is a book of value and honesty."
–Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues

JULY 2011 - AudioFile

Warren Buffett’s son delivers this thoughtful account of how he rose above his father’s achievements to claim his own life. Yet the gentleness of Peter Buffett’s voice does not diminish the strength of character and wisdom that are central to his humble presentation. He writes about his vocational path (he’s a musician), the growth of his worldview, and the advantages of having successful and loving parents. But the deeper listening satisfaction is hearing him discuss the universal challenges of overcoming adolescent hubris, learning trust and courage, defining personal success, and managing life’s conflicts and opportunities. This is rich and affirming material for anyone searching for creative meaning and a place in his or her community. T.W. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169149524
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	04/27/2010
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Introduction


This is a book about gifts received and gifts given back to the world, about expectations and obligations, about family and community, and how they shape us. It’s about living in a society that lulls us with unprecedented comforts, but also tweaks us with anxieties—both economic and otherwise—and too often leaves us empty and bewildered in our search for purpose.

In short, this is a book about values—about the convictions and intuitions that define what’s worth doing during our brief stay on Earth, about the actions and attitudes that will add up to a well-lived life. Economic prosperity may come and go; that’s just how it is. But values are the steady currency that earn us the all- important rewards of self- respect and peace of mind.

This is also a book about identity—about the callings and talents and decisions and quirks that make each of us uniquely who we are.

Values and identity. In my view, these things can be meaningfully addressed only as two sides of the same coin. Our values guide our choices; our choices define who we are. Life is what we make it. The concept is simple, but the process by which we make our own lives can be complex and baffling. Expectations and external pressures blur the outline of our truest selves. Economic reality, for good or ill, plays a big role in the dynamic, as does pure dumb luck.

Ultimately, though, we create the lives we live. This is our greatest burden and greatest opportunity. It is also the most basic, bedrock premise of everything I have to say in these pages.

So then, what sort of people will we choose to be? In the myriad choices that we face each day, will we choose the path of least resistance—or the path of potentially greatest satisfaction? In our dealings with others, will we meekly shy away from intimacy and honesty and tolerance—or will we open ourselves to robust and candid relationships? In our work lives, will we settle for making a living—no sure thing these days!—or aim at the higher goal of earning a life? How will we become worthy of the various gifts we have received? How will we learn the redemptive art of giving back?

Answers to these questions can come only from inside each of us. The goal of this book is simply to raise them, to offer a framework for thought and, I hope, discussion.

But who am I to be writing such a book? The honest answer is no one in particular. I’m not a trained philosopher or sociologist, and I’m not setting up shop as one more self-help guru. My only credential, in fact, is my own life—a life that has forced me to think long and hard about these matters.

By the luck of the draw— what my father calls “winning the Ovarian Lottery”—I was born into a caring and supportive family, a family whose first and most important gift to me was emotional security. Over time, as a bonus that came as a gradual and wonderful surprise, my family also got to be wealthy and distinguished. My dad, Warren Buffett, by dint of hard work, solid ethics, and steady wisdom, has become one of the richest and most respected men in the world. I say this with plenty of filial pride—but also with the humble acknowledgment that those are his accomplishments, not mine. No matter who your parents are, you’ve still got your own life to figure out.

Further, as is widely known, my father has some pretty strong opinions on the subject of inherited wealth. Basically, he believes that the silver spoon in the mouth too often becomes the silver dagger in the back—an illconsidered gift that saps ambition and drains motivation, that deprives a young person of the great adventure of finding his or her own way. My father had the enormous satisfaction of discovering his own passion and making his own mark; why should his kids be denied that challenge and that pleasure? So, no big trust funds for the Buffett clan! My siblings and I, upon turning nineteen, were each given a very modest amount of money, with the clear understanding that we should expect no more.

Certainly there would be no juicy end-of-life bequests. Back in 2006, my father, in an act of philanthropy historic in its scale, gave away the bulk of his fortune—$37 billion—to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. At the same time, he established billion-dollar charitable endowments to be administered by each of his three children.

So here’s an irony for you. Today, at the age of fifty, I find myself with the enormous opportunity and responsibility of stewardship over a billion dollars meant to be given away, while in my own mind I remain very much a working stiff—a composer and musician who, like most of my colleagues, is only as good as his last composition, neither more nor less successful than my next job lets me be.

But that’s okay; I’m doing something I love, something I’ve chosen for myself, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I guess I’ve inherited more than just my father’s genes; I seem to have absorbed much of his philosophy as well.

Don’t get me wrong: I am very well aware that I was born into a privileged life. The economic head start I received from my father may have been a relatively modest one, but still, it was more than most people have—and it was entirely unearned. Similarly, through no merit of my own, I have enjoyed the various, often intangible benefits of a famous last name. Far from denying these advantages, I have spent my life wrestling with their meaning and implications and consequences. To stand an old cliché on its head, I’ve had to learn to make the best of a good situation.

There is a famous quotation from the Book of Luke that was taken very seriously in our family: From those to whom much has been given, much is expected. And it was made very clear that the most important gifts of all had nothing to do with money. There were the gifts of parental love and close community and warm friendship, of inspiring teachers and mentors who took delight in our development. There were the mysterious gifts of talent and competence, capacity for empathy and hard work. These gifts were meant to be respected and repaid.

But how? How do we repay the gifts that came to us unbidden and more or less at random? And not just repay them, but amplify them, so that they grow beyond our own small circle to make a difference in the world? How do we balance ambition and service, personal goals and the common good? How do we avoid the pressures that can trap us into lives that are not really our own? How can we work toward a version of success that we define for ourselves—a success based on values and substance, rather than mere dollars and the approval of others, and that cannot be tarnished or taken away by shifting fashions or a bad economy?

It is my belief, based both on intuition and observation, that there are many, many people wrestling with these questions. Young men and women hankering to set off on their own course, even when their aspirations entail risk and sacrifice and bold divergence from the usual paths. Parents who want to instill solid values in their kids, so that they grow up with a sense of gratitude and adventure, rather than the smug passivity that comes from feeling entitled.

These people, and many others—teachers, nurses, business leaders, artists—recognize that they are members of a society unprecedented in its affluence but appalling in its inequality. They are people of conscience—people who respect the gifts that they’ve been given and want to use those gifts to make not just a livelihood, but a difference. If this book is of some small help and comfort to the many individuals who are questing to live their own true lives, and to give back in the process, then I will have accomplished what I hoped to do.

Videos